PeertoPeer Development with MediaRich Faculty Case Studies Gail MatthewsDeNatale, Ph'D' Associate Di

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Peer-to-Peer Development with Media-Rich Faculty
Case StudiesGail Matthews-DeNatale,
Ph.D.Associate Director, Academic
TechnologyElizabeth Santiago, Ed.M.Senior
Instructional Designer, Academic Technology
2008 Sloan-C International Conference on Online
Learning
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Presentation Agenda

• Simmons Blended Learning
• Faculty PD Strategies Show of Hands
• The Conundrum
• About the Case Studies
• Case Study Tour
• Pair/Share Uses and Wish List

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About Simmons

• 100 years old
• Private college located in Boston
• 5,000 students (1/2 grad, 1/2 undergrad)
• Womens undergrad college and five co-educational
  grad schools
• Small university

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Blended Learning _at_ Simmons

• 2006-07
• Shared Academic Technology Vision (campus-wide
  process)
• Blended learning identified as a priority
• 2008-10
• Awarded a Sloan Localness grant to
• Blend two programs
• Develop infrastructure and policies in support of
  blended
• Articulate model congruent with high touch
  campus culture

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Blended Learning _at_ Simmons

• Progress
• Official policies authorized in support of
  blended
• Support documents for Curriculum Committees
• Twice annual faculty institute (based on UW-M)
• 37 Simmons faculty and staff have participated
• 20 courses have been blended
• Project assessment instruments created, in
  implementation
• Good so far, but there are challenges

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Strategies Show of Hands

• How many of your institutions
• Hold annual conferences or showcases of exemplary
  faculty use of technology for teaching?
• Host faculty lunches or other opportunities for
  peer-to-peer sharing?
• Offer intensive faculty institutes or multi-week
  faculty seminars with faculty as presenters
  and facilitators?

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Strategies Show of Hands

How many of these events

• If You Organized Them
• Were difficult to schedule at a time people could
  attend?
• Lacked critical mass and key people werent
  there?
• Overstretched staff and faculty presenter
  resources?
• Felt like one shots that didnt add up to much?

• If You Wanted/Did Go
• Took place at a time that you couldnt attend?
• Would have been better if attended by a peer
  cohort?
• Needed to go into more detail to inform your
  teaching?
• Could have been more useful if they were
  documented?

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The Conundrum

• Faculty feel they learn best from one another
• Faculty prefer self-paced and/or informal
  (one-on-one mentoring), as opposed to formal
  formats
• Time is a precious commodity for most faculty
• Potential faculty mentors have limited capacity
  and availability
• Source Taylor and McQuiggan (Educause
  Quarterly, September 2008)

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Simmons Model for PD
Instructor w/o prior blended experience
Participate in one week intensive institute,
plans and receives feedback
Institute outcome includes a course redesign plan

Option 1 Develop in consultation with ID
Plan
ID
Option 2 Developw/o ID consultation
Experienced faculty contribute to future
institutes workshops

• Builds a faculty community of support for blended
• But success depends on presence of faculty
  presenters
• Through ethnographic documentation, use f2f to
  build virtual

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Ethnographic Case Studies

• Include
• Video Interview
• Course Tour
• Sample Course Materials(Modules, Assignments)
• Recommended Exercises for Blended Course
  Redesign
• Glossary of Terms
• Designed to also be used as learning modules

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Ethnographic Case Studies

• Use Scenarios
• Face-to-face institutes or blended institutes
• Fully online professional development (especially
  for adjuncts)
• Scheduled asynchronous (faculty available online
  as discussants)
• Self-paced independent

See Case Study Tour
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About the Case Studies
Ten faculty cases planned for 08-09, eight are
in the can, and topics include

• The Faculty-Instructional Designer relationship
  
• Involving students in online journaling
• Writing online course materials assignments
• Personalizing your writing tone
• Designing blended group assignments

• Top 10 Tips for course redesign
• Authoring discussion prompts and facilitation
• Involving students in multimedia production
• From CATs to BLATs
• Strategies for supporting blended students

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Pair/Share Uses and Wishes

• If a series of cases like these were available to
  you, how would you use them at your institution?
  
• What features would be most important to you?
  What could be omitted? What could be added?
• What additional topics would you like to see in a
  series like this?

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Thank You
To receive notification on the release of the
cases, please use the sign-up sheet or email
gmdenatale_at_simmons.edu